User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder < 5.2.8 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.2.8
- Affected Version
< 5.2.8- CVSS
- 6.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
- CVE
CVE-2026-80071
At a glance
CVE-2026-80071 is a medium-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the User Registration & Membership WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 5.2.8. It carries a CVSS score of 6.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Author level or above. The issue is fixed in version 5.2.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2026, reported by Jonathan Dersch.
Vulnerability Overview
The User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to 5.2.8. This is due to insufficient restriction on the capabilities a user may grant themselves. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to elevate their privileges beyond those intended for their role.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no interaction from a victim user.
CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
Reaching this weakness in User Registration & Membership < 5.2.8 takes an account at Author level or above. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.
It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. For User Registration & Membership the fix is 5.2.8: builds < 5.2.8 are affected, anything from 5.2.8 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.2.8, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: User Registration & Membership 5.2.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
- 9.8CVE-2026-1492: User Registration & Membership Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-1492 - 9.8CVE-2025-2563: User Registration & Membership Privilege Escalation
CVE-2025-2563 - 8.1CVE-2026-11961: User Registration & Membership Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-11961 - 6.3CVE-2026-86406: User Registration & Membership Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-86406
Other vulnerabilities in User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder
- 9.9CVE-2023-3342: User Registration <= 3.0.2 Arbitrary File Upload
CVE-2023-3342 - 9.8CVE-2026-32488: User Registration & Membership RCE
CVE-2026-32488 - 8.8CVE-2024-2417: User Registration Authenticated (Subscriber+)
CVE-2024-2417 - 8.8CVE-2023-3343: User Registration <= 3.0.1 PHP Object Injection
CVE-2023-3343 - 8.8CVE-2022-3912: User Registration <= 2.2.4 Arbitrary File Upload
CVE-2022-3912 - 8.1CVE-2026-1779: User Registration & Membership Authentication Bypass
CVE-2026-1779 - 8.1CVE-2025-2594: User Registration & Membership Authentication Bypass
CVE-2025-2594 - 7.5CVE-2023-27459: User Registration <= 2.3.2.1 PHP Object Injection
CVE-2023-27459
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